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The OSS breathing coach analogy

“To paraphrase the great Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, resisting change is like trying to hold your breath – even if you’re successful, it won’t end well.”
Michael McQueenhere.

OSS is an interesting dichotomy. At one end of the scale, you have the breath holders – those who want the status quo to remain so that they can bring their OSS (and/or network) under control. At the other end, you have the hyperventilators – those who want to force a constant stream of change to overcome any perceived shortfalls in the current solution.

The more desirable state is probably a balance between breath holding and hyperventilation:

If you’re an OSS implementer (eg vendor, integrator, internal project delivery team), then you rely on change – as long as it’s enough to deliver an income, but not so much as to overwhelm you.

If you’re an OSS operator, then you long for an OSS that does its role perfectly and evolves at a manageable speed, allowing you stability.

The art of change management in OSS is to act as a breathing coach – to find the collective balance of respiration that suits the organisation whilst considering the natural tendencies of all of the different contributors to the project.

Just like breathing, change might seem simple, but is often completely underestimated as a result. But spend some time with any breathing coach or OSS change manager and you’ll find that there are many techniques that they call upon to find optimal balance.